She’s not gonna write you a love song ’cause you asked for it, but Sara Bareilles will sing it for you in her 2024 New Year’s Eve special coming to PBS.
In a clip shared exclusively with Billboard from Sara Bareilles: New Year’s Eve With the National Symphony Orchestra & Friends, the vocalist is joined by a full orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as she belts out her 2007 breakthrough hit — with an assist from a crowd sing-along. With Bareilles behind the piano, strings, woodwinds and brass give the sassy tune a lusher sound as the Waitress composer sings, “If you’re on your way/ I’m not gonna write you to stay/ If all you have is leavin’, I’ma need a better reason/ To write you a love song today.”
The track — which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2008 — is just one of several Bareilles will perform on the Kennedy Center stage for the special, which premieres 8 p.m. ET Tuesday (Dec. 31) across PBS, PBS.org and the PBS app. As teased in a trailer posted on Christmas Eve, the showcase will entail a night of music supported by the National Symphony Orchestra and special guests Rufus Wainwright, Emily King, David Ryan Harris, Ben Folds, Madison Cunningham and Renée Elise Goldsberry. Plus, the “King of Anything” musician will share stories — both comedic and emotional — about her life and career.
“If I’m not being creative, and I’m not making music, I’m not in alignment with what I’m supposed to be here doing,” Bareilles says in the 30-second clip, which features snippets of the star performing her 2013 show-stopper “Brave.”
Aside from her New Year’s celebration, Bareilles also spent 2024 working on the score for The Interestings, an upcoming Broadway adaptation of Meg Wolitzer book of the same name. Earlier this year, the third season of Girls5Eva — in which the singer stars alongside Goldsberry, Busy Philipps and Paula Pell — aired on Netflix.
Check out a sneak peek of Bareilles’ New Year’s Eve special below.